I spent a half a day at Salt Creek Beach in Dana Point today utilizing the 5D Mark III with some more of it's potential. This was taken on the rocks with a 400mm L 5.6 lens ( no filters). Settings were: 1/2500, 6.3, ISO 800, Exposure +1 2/3, AI Servo, AF Point Expansion:Surround, AWB, High Speed Conitnuous. Made 2 additional copies of the file at -1 exposure and -2 exposure. Stacked in Photomatix 4.2 then cropped to 1920x1280 from JPG master which was from 3 RAW files.

After seeing what this camera can do..I'm not sure I'll be using the EOS 7D anymore. The 5D MKIII is nothing short of amazing. (Flickr has dulled this image)

Its a great shot but I really think it would be better without the photomatix treatmenthave you noticed how photomatix gives a really nasty effect to out of focus bokeh that would normally be really buttery. if you look at the out of focus waves at the top then compare them with your exposure you will see what I mean.

I think with Lightroom 4.1 you could extract all that Dynamic range from the single shot and it would be cleaner without the tonemapping.

I do think you do a pretty good job of reigning in photomatix's tendancy to go nuts with colour shifts in the tonemapping stage

Wicki..I see what you are referring to and retraced my steps. That is not from Photomatix, its from adjusting the DNR lighting equalizer settings in ACDSee Pro 5 as the photo is a bit washed out as I had to push the exposure to +1 and 2/3 on site as I was working with less than ideal conditions (i.e very bright sunlight).

Here's the actual image untouched. Shot as RAW then to JPG then to cropped JPG @ 1920x1280.

PS re: Photomatix indeed the presets are ridiculously fake looking and actually can ruin a photo. I've worked the program to what I believe satisfactorily and have made my own templates which escape that surreal / painterly look.

Here's another JPG crop of a JPG crop off a RAW. This one has the Lighting EQ adjusted a bit here and there and was not treated with Photomatix. Settings were: 1/2500, 6.3, +1 on EC, ISO 500, AI Servo, AF Point Expansion:surround, AWB, also with Canon 400mm L.

oh i meant to mention a solution i found when i was using photomatix alot

take your raw where that oof area is exposed how you want it to be or process it again just for the oof areathen add it and you final tonemapped image into photoshop as layersalign them make sure the non tonemapped image is underneathadd a mask layer to the tonemapped image and then paint in the corrected oof areas in the mask with a nice feather on the brush it will clean it up nicely and is real quick

yeah all the presets in photomatix are horrible, I can see you are going for the slight pump in local contrast that tonemapping gives you which is giveing a lot more pop to the spray and the wavehave you tried topaz adjust? it can do much of the same stuff but you can be a little more selectiveof course with adjust you can also create retina splitting abominations and pseudo HDR too but with care you can tweak up that local contrast on a normal image without needing to go through the tonemapping process. Another benefit is its all working on raw data, one of the problems with taking several processed jpg files and then further processing them can cause other IQ issues like artifacts and is destructive to the image.

All that aside the shot doesnt stick out as a blatant tonemapped HDR anyway its just those few tell tales.If you cleaned up the oof area and didnt tell anyone you used photomatix i'm sure not many people could pick itand this is a very good thing. The old saying that the best HDR photos are the ones you cant tell are HDR is very true.

I'm still searching for the perfect HDR technique and work flow. It can be extremely time consuming, I guess thats where photomatix has lots of appeal in that its quick. but coupled with that speed you are very much at the mercy of the software.

also the new ligthroom 4.1 is amazing at pulling detail out of highlightsthe area of that shot where the tonemapping really works though is the wave it looks so alive

Thank you for opening a thread 5dMKIII and sportsphotos. Exactly what I am looking for.I am using a 7D a lot for shooting footbal. Love to see what the 5D MKIII can do with 6fps and all the fancy settings.The 5D MKIII is on my list. My only worry: loss of reach over the football field. And, being forced to buy one or more lenses with more reach. Especially after your comment that you might not go back to the 7D

Jason Beiko

I spent a half a day at Salt Creek Beach in Dana Point today utilizing the 5D Mark III with some more of it's potential. This was taken on the rocks with a 400mm L 5.6 lens ( no filters). Settings were: 1/2500, 6.3, ISO 800, Exposure +1 2/3, AI Servo, AF Point Expansion:Surround, AWB, High Speed Conitnuous. Made 2 additional copies of the file at -1 exposure and -2 exposure. Stacked in Photomatix 4.2 then cropped to 1920x1280 from JPG master which was from 3 RAW files.

After seeing what this camera can do..I'm not sure I'll be using the EOS 7D anymore. The 5D MKIII is nothing short of amazing. (Flickr has dulled this image)

I like the pseudo HDR? shot much better....the background waves are not blown out like seen in the second shot. Very nice shot and processing....